Advisory Board
The Business Excellence Institute’s Advisory Board serves to bring independent thought and expertise to the Institutes’s leadership. It is comprised of professionals with a diverse experience base who are champions of excellence in their own rights. They provide valuable external perspectives and help maintain a culture of openness and excellence. They help our leaders refine the Institute’s strategy and approach to ensure the ongoing creation of long-term value for all our stakeholders.
Bhaskaran Srinivasan
Bhaskaran is a senior strategy consultant with over three decades of experience in engineering and management.
He started his career as an engineer in Bharat Heavy Electricals where he worked for ten years before becoming a Divisional Manager with Robert Bosch. In 1998, he joined the senior management team of Philips India where, among other things, he was Head of R&D for Philips Healthcare. In 2011, he established the consulting firm Business Zenz, which serves multinationals and Indian firms in their pursuit of excellence.
Bhaskaran holds an Engineering degree from the highly respected National Institute of Technology Warangal, an MBA from Bangalore University, and has also completed a senior executive course from Wharton. He is a CFI certified Executive Coach, qualified Business Excellence Assessor, and a Fellow of the Institute.
Heidi Fuerst
Heidi is a corporate finance and accounting professional with experience working in Europe and the US.
She began her career with Deloitte and Touche in Phoenix, Arizona, before entering the hotel and real estate industry with Ramada International where she was later appointed Director of International Accounting in Frankfurt, Germany. Back in the US, she spent some time in Pharmacy Benefits Management before serving as Vice President of Finance for CTF Hotels and Resorts. Since 2007 she has worked as an advisor to a number of companies ranging from tech start-ups to event management and also teaches yoga in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Heidi is a CPA and holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with majors in Accounting and Finance from the University of Arizona. She is a Fellow of the Institute.
Jim Riordan
Jim is a senior operational and commercial finance professional with 25 years’ international experience in a variety of market, regional and global finance and supply chain leadership positions. He has extensive experience doing business in emerging markets across Africa, Asia, Brazil, Russia and former CIS countries.
As a market and regional CFO, Jim has a track record in driving strategy execution within a framework of sustainable business practices. Since 2010, he led a global supply chain business unit, working directly with small-scale growers to develop sustainable business models. He is now moving to leverage this experience in the food security space, working with the World Economic Forum as a Finance & Supply Chain Senior Advisor, to increase food production to meet the 2050 population growth challenge.
Jim is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (UK) and holds an MBA from University College Dublin’s Smurfit Business School. He is a Fellow of the Institute.
Thomas Paulu
Thomas is an accomplished leader with 30 years of experience in international large-scale program management, business transformation, and organizational management. He has a background in operations, process improvement, and information technology and has worked in Europe and the US.
In the Allianz Group, Thomas has a proven record of successfully delivering on strategy both as Head of Group Process Architecture for the group and, previously, as Head of Global Business Process Architecture for Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty. He served as a Non-Executive Director of an Irish software company (2012-2016), currently serves as Chair of the Alumni Association of Amerika Institute in Munich, and has been an Advisory Board Member of the Institute since it was established.
Thomas holds a MA in Humanities & Social Sciences from Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. He is a qualified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, a certified Kaizen Practitioner, and a Fellow of the Institute.
Krisztina Rozgonyi
Krisztina is an international media, telecommunications, and IP legal policy expert.
She works with a wide range of international organizations including UNESCO, the UN’s ITU, the Council of Europe, the European Commission, and the World Bank as well as with governments, regulators, and companies. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Vienna’s Department of Communications.
Krisztina holds a Masters in Communication Sciences and a Doctor Juris in Law and State Sciences (both from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest), an MBA from the Central European University) and a PhD in Communication Sciences from the University of Vienna. She is a Fellow of the Institute.
Matt Fisher
Matt is a seasoned Business Excellence Professional with two decades of experience helping companies do better. Prior to joining the Institute, he was COO of the EFQM. He holds a BSc and an MSc. in Environmental Chemistry. He is Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, a European Excellence Assessor and a qualified EFQM Excellence Assessor trainer. Matt is a Fellow of the Institute.
Nele Leosk
Nele is Estonia’s Ambassador-at-Large for Digital Affairs.
She has over fifteen years’ experience working with and for central and local governments on government innovation and digital governance in more than forty countries across Central and Eastern Europe, South-Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. She has also consulted for the OECD, the UN, and the EU.
Nele holds a BA in English Philology Educational Sciences (Tallinn University), an MA in Public Communications (Tallinn University), a Masters of Research in Political & Social Science (European University Institute), and a PhD in Digital Governance (European University Institute). She is a Recognized Excellence Expert™ and a Fellow of the Institute.
